RESEARCH PAPER

SUB - ENGLISH

TITLE - WOMAN EXPLOITATION IN SAUDI

ARABIA IN JEAN P. SASSON’S ‘PRINCESS’

BY - SUNIL P. GAIKWAD
DESIGNATION : ASST. TEACHER
NEW HIGHSCHOOL, GANGAPUR
DIST.- AURANGABAD

MOBILE NO. : 7588096538

E_Mail : varadsanket_69@rediff.com

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 RESEARCH PAPER

WOMAN EXPLOITATION IN SAUDI ARABIA IN JEAN P.

SASSON’S ‘PRINCESS’
BY- SUNIL P. GAIKWAD

NEW HIGHSCHOOL, GANGAPUR

DIST.- AURANGABAD

ABSTRACT :

Exploitation of women is a matter of great concern in Islamic countries.

Women are considered inferior to men in the society and the formal law. They have to
adopt the traditional values. Even the formal law cannot permit them to change their
traditional attitudes. In Saudi Arabia, women have no freedom, respect or identity of their
own. They cannot vote or be elected to high political positions. It is the only country in the
world where women are not permitted to drive a car or she is murdered for chatting with a
man on facebook.
The idea of ‘Exploitation’ of a woman is explored in Jean P. Sasson’s Non-
Fiction book “Princess (1993)”, through Sulatana, the protagonist of the story. Even the
modern world revolution of women, human rights and western cultures have not brought
any respite to the women of Saudi Arabia.

PRELIMINARIES :
The research paper is an attempt to study the status of woman in Saudi
Arabia through the character of ‘Princess’. Beyond the veils of women there is a secret
society, to the heart of a nation where sex, money and power reign supreme.
Sasson tells appalling oppression and exploitations of women occurred
everyday that would be hardly seen in any other culture. Woman is treated like a prisoner
in her own country. They are confined with neither light nor conversation until death
claims them.
TERMS :

a) Exploitation :

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 This term is commonly associated with the treatment. The term is
described in Macmillian dictionary as follows,

Unfair treatment of someone or the use of situation in

a way that is wrong in order to get some benefit for yourself.
[ www.macmilliandictionary.com]

b) Saudi Arabia :

Saudi Arabia is a Islamic country, the birthplace of Islam and home

to Islam’s two holiest shrine in Mecca and Medina. The Saudi government continues to
treat women as minors.

MAJOR THEME :
Sultana is the Saudi Arabian princess, born in a wealthy family.
Despite of her richness, she is bound by a strict society. She lifts the veil and reveals a
history of appalling oppression and human rights violations such as forced marriage and
sex slavery. She defines women as nothing but the vessels for sexual relief and a breeder
of children. Her story unveils many horrible incidents of women in Saudi Arabia.

Exploitation of Women in Saudi Arabia :

The story of the Princess begins with the slapping of Ali to his
sister, Sultana for refusing to hand over the apple, she was given by the Pakistani cook.
She was punished to teach that men were her Masters. At an early stage she realized that,

All women learn at an early age to manipulate rather than

to comfort. I first become aware that I was a female who
was shackled by males unburdened by consciences.
[ Sasson, Jean P. : 26,27 ]

Her mother also accepted the fact that they had been born on the land
where women are considered low. They have no right to get education as their male
counterpart. Women are ruled by male dominated society. A Saudi father and husband
has complete control over a woman’s life. On her sister Sara’s divorce she said,

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 Islam gives the right of divorce to men, without any question
of motive. Yet it is very difficult for a woman to divorce her
husband.
[ Ibid : 66 ]

Only men have the right to take final decision on marriage and divorce. The
feelings of Sara was not considered. She had to come to her father’s home. Sultana gives a
horrifying picture of women of her country. Her country does not maintain the records of
female, but male children are documented in family. While reading the book the reader
discovers the picture of woman from the words of Sultana,

The History of our women is buried behind the black veil

of secrecy. Neither our births nor our deaths are made
official in any public record. The common emotion
expressed at the birth of a female is either sorrow or
shame.
[ Ibid : 22 }
These lines bring the whole theme of the non-entity of women. It leads us
to much more shocking crimes against women are not considered to be crimes in Saudi
Arabian society
Sultana described a family holiday to Egypt in which she returned to the
rented villa one day and found that her brother was raping an eight year old girl. When she
complained to her aunt and uncle, they ignored the event as a bit of harmless boyish fun.
Sultana hated Kareem when he asked her permission for second marriage.
She left him for some days to teach him a lesson, but at last they had to settle in a good
relationship bound by custom, tradition and mutual love of their children. She regrets that
their love never fully revived after the incident of the second wife of Kareem. But she had
a hope that there would be a celebration of life in the society, when its women were free to
live without fear.

OTHER INCIDENTS OF EXPLOITATIONS :

The Princess depicts that even the women from the royal families are
beaten, executed and enslaved by their father, husband and brothers. The story of Nadia,

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who was drowned in the family pool by her father for engaging wild sexual behavior with
non-Saudi. Sultana’s sister Sara, who attempted suicide after being sold as a wife to a sick
and sexually brutal elderly man,
Madeline a Filipino woman, who came to Saudi Arabia to take a job of
working as a housekeeper in a private home. There she learnt her duties included
providing daily sexual release to her employer and his two sons. When she is found
pregnant, she was stoned to death. No one came forward to save her life.
Amal, the friend of Sultana was raped by her brother’s friends in her own
house. To save her brother for using drugs, no family member dared to save her life. She
was killed to protect the honor of family.
Sameera, a young woman had to pay the price to love Larry. Her husband
divorced her by saying that she was no longer pure. She came to her father’s home. She
had been sentenced to ‘the woman’s room’, a particularly cruel punishment. A special
room was a kind of prison for her. She remained for many years and had gone mad.
These stories show how these courageous women can survive in this kind
of life. There are many horrifying incidents depicted by Sultana. She remembered a
woman of a small village, who was found guilty of adultery. She was condemned to die
by stoning a large crowd, gathered and hurled stones at the woman. The stones continued
to thud against her body till the doctor pronounced her dead.
On female inequality and the condition of women, Sultana said,
We women are vassals and the walls of our prisons are
unscalable for this grotesque disease of pre-eminence lives
in the sperm of all men and is passed along, generation to
generation - a deadly incurable disease whose host is male
and victim is female.
[ Ibid : 140 ]
Saudi women are often forced to suffer a circumcision as young girls and
are married after they begin menstruating. They have to cover all her skin in the presence
of men, A Saudi woman cannot work or drive, so they are strictly reliant upon men.

CONCLUSIONS :
Jean P. Sasson tells us the true story of Saudi Arabian women through a
Princes, Sultana, who is helpless and exploited by male dominated society. She describes

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the woman, beaten and sexually harassed by this society.
The issues like honor killings, sexual slavery, arrange marriages and
mutilations of female genitals, all brings the horror and the kind of exploitation that still
exist today. Won’t it be fair to say that every human being male or female has the right to
lead a life of dignity?

WORK CITED

1 Sasson, Jean P., 1993, Princess, Batham Book, Great Britain.

2 www.macmilliandictionary.com as on 3/1/2013
3 http://www.independent.org/publications/tir_11_02_06_cohen.pdf
as on 28/12/2012
4 http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/saudiarabia/factbook
as on 3/1/2013

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 RESUME

NAME – SUNIL P. GAIKWAD

DATE OF BIRTH – 01st February 1969

DESIGNATION – Asst. Teacher

QUALIFICATION – M.A. M.PHIL. B.ED.

M.PHIL. THESIS TITLE - The Problems in Teaching and Learning

Guided Composition at Secondary Level

EXPERIENCE - teaches English for 20 years in M.S.P.

Mandal’s New High school, Gangapur.